As we continue to add and refine features on the site, we are continually looking for feedback on what works and what doesn’t. We crave that feedback actually – to know that people actually care enough to send us a note is invigorating during these early months of starting up.
A pitfall that we strive to avoid from all of the feedback is staying focused on our core competencies. It is easy when a suggestion is submitted to feel that it is the next great feature that we just have to include – that it will be the killer feature to market and bring in the scores of eyeballs that we crave (and ultimately need to make this thing go).
However, as Seth Godin points out, “…just about every place, has a shot at greatness, at becoming a destination, a place with profits and happiness and growth. Along the way, it’s easy to start compromising your marketing, because it seems like in that moment, it’s expedient.”
From our experience, this is a constant struggle – especially in the competitive (i.e. well funded – trulia.com is one example) landscape of our vertical market – as we try to differentiate our site from the many options available on a shoestring (nearly non-existent) budget. We are after all, two guys doing this in our spare time, so staying focused is of the utmost importance if we ever hope to make this work.
So, while we have lots of new features planned in the coming year, you won’t see lots of functionality changes in the near future. We are more focused on increasing the depth of the listings in our existing markets (Madison, Milwaukee, Minnepolis/St. Paul and Chicago) and keeping our user interface clean and simple. Having said that, if there are geographical areas that you would like to see us expand into, tell us on our contact form, we do plan on lots of expansion this year from that standpoint.
Along the way though, we continually remind ourselves to not stray from our core mission: real estate search made simple. Let us know if we are accomplising that (or not)!
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